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> “AI is in this critical moment where humankind is trying to decide whether this technology is good for us or not,” Kim says. “If we don’t solve this problem o
by abrichr 8y ago
> “AI is in this critical moment where humankind is trying to decide whether this technology is good for us or not,” Kim says. “If we don’t solve this problem of interpretability, I don’t think we’re going to move forward with this technology. We might just drop it.”
AI interpretability is a very important and exciting field, and I don't mean to detract from the rest of this article, or from the speaker's work. However:
1) Technology is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It is a tool that can be used for one or the other.
2) If it's useful for something, some people will use it, despite the protests of others. Have we ever collectively decided to "drop it" in the past, where "it" is a powerful technology?
- mneary 8y agoatomic bomb?
- abrichr 8y agoThe underlying technology here is nuclear fission and fusion, which we do use for "good" purposes (i.e. energy generation).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 8y agoPlenty of nations maintain those and are ready to use them - and there's even a decent argument that if they stop, the world will plunge into chaos.
- roywiggins 8y agoCFCs and asbestos are very useful and we've also decided to largely ban them outright because of the horrible side effects. It turns out there's hardly any safe ways to use them so they're not really worth the benefits.
- abrichr 8y agoGood point! From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon: > Because CFCs contribute to ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere, the manufacture of such compounds has been phased out under the Montreal Protocol, and they are being replaced with other products such as hydrofluorocarbons Maybe this success is at least somewhat due to the fact that there is an alternative technology that has very similar utility and cost, but without the significant negative effects. The absence of such an alternative might explain why Asbestos hasn't had similar success. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Usage_by_industry_and_product_type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Usage_by_industry_and...: > Some countries, such as India, Indonesia, China, Russia and Brazil, have continued widespread use of asbestos.
- jcadam 8y agoThe CFC-free albuterol inhalers (for us asthmatics) introduced in the last ten years are objectively worse than the ones they replaced. On the bright side, the new formulations meant new patents for drug manufacturers and the elimination of cheap generic alternatives for patients, so there's that.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoWas CFC the propellant, or part of what you inhaled? I find it hard to believe that inhaling CFC could be good for you.
- roywiggins 8y agoCFC was used as the propellant. https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/QuestionsAnswers/ucm077808.htm https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/Question...
- adamisom 8y agoI'm not sure how applicable this is because of the nature of the AI beast. It took decades for asbestos to be banned and given how slow we were to collectively make the decision we might just be too slow in turning away from AI/ML tech.
- Mirioron 8y agoI think cloning and certain types of stem cell research might fall into this category.
- abrichr 8y agoBoth fields appears to be making progress. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning: > Macaque monkey: (2017) First successful cloning of a primate species using nuclear transfer, with the birth of two live clones, named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. Conducted in China in 2017, and reported in January 2018.[59][60][61][62] In January 2019, scientists in China reported the creation of five identical cloned gene-edited monkeys, using the same cloning technique that was used with Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua – the first ever cloned monkeys - and Dolly the sheep, and the same gene-editing Crispr-Cas9 technique allegedly used by He Jiankui in creating the first ever gene-modified human babies Lulu and Nana. The monkey clones were made in order to study several medical diseases.[63][64] From Pluripotent stem cells: the last 10 years (2016) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27908220 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27908220): > Over the past 10 years, technological advances and innovative platforms have yielded first-in-man PSC-based clinical trials and opened up new approaches for disease modeling and drug development.
- pferde 8y agoShe's not talking about technology being good or bad, but rather about it being good or bad for us.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoIt doesn't matter, the statement "technology is neither good nor bad for us in and of itself" still holds true.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- flippyhead 8y agoI feel like one big difference with AI is that, supposedly, at some point it's not just technology, it's conscious and conscious things can definitely be inherently bad.
- ausbah 8y agoat least to a certain level of consciousness, the goals of an AI are still determined by its creator (given they understand how to set goals for machines that are advanced enough to call them "conscious" on some level